Legend's Loss
by The GirlieGyarados
Summary: The Legendary Red Gyarados of the Lake of Rage has finally been captured! The people of Mahogany Town are happy-In fact, they've celebrated all night. But what does the Red Gyarados think about all this? Rated for mild swearing and violence.


  
  
Legend's Loss  
  
***  
  
A/N: Hey ya'll! This is a pokemon fic I wrote, set from the point of view of the Legendary Red Gyarados of the Gold/Silver version, after it's capture. Why? You see, Gyarados is a very powerful, very useful pokemon in the gameboy and card games, and also in the show and comics. And it gets zero publicity-Charizard and pikachu get it all. (I have nothing against Charizard btw, but no, I don't like ash's pikachu). And sadly, in the fanfics I've read, if it's ever mentioned, it's a mere bogeyfish, a test of a trainer's skill, a power spoke of reverently, but nothing more. And that pisses me off. Henceforth, I wrote this, the musings of the red gyarados after it was captured. Enjoy.  
  
A/N: Rated for mild swearing and, umm-graphic descriptions of predatory behavior. Can't take the heat, get out of the oven.  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I did, ash would never carry around that damned electric rat.  
  
***  
  
Wearily, I gazed at the moon. No. No way. How could it only have been one in the morning? The night was barely half over. Those five hours of captivity were more like five years. Is this what it's like to lose one's freedom? Abruptly, I understand why many of the more tempestuous pokemon species, such as my own, live shorter lives in captivity. It erodes away at your will to live.  
  
Lowering my own massive head, I peer through the bars of my cage. Yes, I said cage. Damn humans, stick *me* in a cage...  
  
A cool breeze blesses the night air. I blissfully closed my eyes and fanned out all of my fins and other thin skin membranes to catch the breeze. It was too damned hot and dry. I had seen some less aquatic species perform this trick when it was hot out: They exposed as much surface area as they could to the breeze so that the blood would cool. I had never tried this before, and I was grateful to see that it worked, at least a little. I hoped it would. I had only strayed from the water a few times during my life, and that was only when it was dark and cool and rainy out. I could survive on land for extended periods of time, especially in cool wet weather. I'm not a fish, I'm a reptile, I have lungs. The biggest inhibition to being on land was dehydration. All of my kind can dehydrate very easily. I can already see how my scale shine is more greasy than wet. My body is using it's own special lubricants, using it's own precious moisture to keep my scales from eroding and becoming damaged and flaky.   
  
To keep me alive and breathing.  
  
At the edge of my vision, the embers of the bonfire flicker down and die, finally. The moon and stars are now the only light at the edge of the lake. Suits me just fine. Humans, I guess, must have poor night vision, from the way that once the sun and moon pass their zenith, their silly sparking and burning lights appear. Bright light hurts my delicate eyes, especially out of water. I can't really help it, my species is a deep-water one, not designed for light that glares and stings like human lights. Even no light doesn't bother us. We can always use our echolocation, our sonar, to determine exactly what's in front of us.  
Anyways, now that I could see clearly, I looked around to see what had become of the humans, privately hoping some rampaging Houndoom had finished them off.  
  
My hopes were dashed as I surveyed the lakeside scene. I could see and hear that the humans were definately alive, though not quite well. In fact, they were sprawled over all and sundry. It was ridiculous, almost comical, the way their legs and arms were flopped all over, looking like they'd just fallen down and stayed there. Less amusing is the sound of their raucous snoring, like a Pinsir boring through wood, hammering my sensitive eardrums. Slightly puzzling, this was, though-from I knew of humans, they liked to sleep stretched in something soft, and very rarely snored, and never this loud. But the breeze shifted, and eliminated my confusion just as fast. Becuase on the breeze was the scent of nicotine, tobacco, alchohol. The foul stenches made my nose close up and my eyes water. Damn, there goes more precious moisture.  
  
Bleary from the smoke and and scent, my violet gaze turns toward the lake. Toward my home. I have never felt more lost and homesick than I do now, not even during the migration I underwent as a Magikarp. I wanted to feel the currents peculiar to the Lake of Rage, the way they washed over my spines and swept around my sensitive facial fins and feelers, alerting me to the movement of creatures in the water around me. I wanted to dive into the depths, past the shallow sandy bottom of the shallows (which are an excellent place for sunbathing and scaring the bejeezus out of fishermen), to the dark pressure of the crevasses and canyons in the lake, pressure that is no pressure, because my entire life is built around winding throught the mazes of jutting rocks, marking my territory to the smaller blue Gyarados that also inhabited the lake. Chasing the Poliwhirl and Poliwag, Wooper and Quagsire, Goldeen and Seaking, through the water, into kelp beds and past reefs. My prey. Sometimes, occaisonally, I teamed up with another Gyarados to chase a large school of Remoraid to where they couldn't escape, or to catch a Mantine and rip into bite size pieces. After all, there are some things no Gyarados can do alone. Even if it is a legend.  
  
On occaison, I'd lunge out of the water to grab some foolish land creature that drank too close to the deep end of the lake. Partly because Girafarig are very tasty and Flaafy an interesting challenge (it's not often my food even has a chance of beating me), and partly because the sight of my massive head and neck rocketing out of the water with a tremendous splash and roar, grabbing some land dweller frightened out of it's wits and falling back into lake, usually having swallowed the land dweller by the time I'm back in the lake, scares the shit out of any nearby humans. Literally.  
  
Land creatures around here are pitiably small; they never are more than a mouthful, nowhere near the amout of food necessary to fuel my body for even an hour. But I hunt land dwellers because it's incredibly exhilirating, have a creature that's far too weak try to shock you in your mouth and make you let go. It's less amusing when they're in your esophagus and shock you, that can cause you to spasm and spit it out, it fighting every inch of the way, since it's too disoriented to know in which direction it's headed. That can seriously damage your esophagus-some Gyarados have starved to death because an injured esophagus has made them unable to eat.  
  
I have never eaten a human-not that I know of, at least. Our kind rarely do, unless we are hunting as newly evolved or showing newly evolved young how to hunt, or facing starvation. It's a well known fact that humans taste bitter and metallic, and their clothing sticks to your tongue for the longest time... Considering how rarely we hunt humans, I find it hard to believe they've started such a vendetta against us in general and me in particular. I can speak for almost every Gyarados when I say I'd only attack something I don't intend to eat if it threatened my life, my mate or my young-And since I, the Red Gyarados, have neither mate nor young, I pose less of a threat to humanity than the average blue Gyarados. And yet it's always me facing the hunters and exterminators, always me facing the overconfident trainers. I've had more attempts on my life than all the Gyarados in this lake put together. And I have repelled every one, sometimes at the cost of human lives. And they have kept on coming.  
  
Until today.  
  
Until the fool. Until the fool with reddish brown spiky mane and the attitude, until the fool and his Nidoqueen, until the fool's Master ball.  
  
Until today, when the legend fell.  
  
I heard the fool called himself Gary. Isn't that ironic. The king of Gyarados, toppled by a fool with his name. The fool wanted me to be his pokemon, his battle slave. He told me this after he let me out of the ball. Can youi imagine the greatest pokemon of all time, reduced to slaving for the fool in the arena? Neither could I, and I told him so. The fool overreacted and called the Jenny in the city to control me. I honestly didn't think that the oblong piece of shiny red metal was worth so much. Maybe it was the other humans in it, whom I believe were the female of the species. Only one of them was badly hurt, and she'll live. Still, in retrospect, that was, perhaps, not the wisest of actions. No matter the fact that the meatl box did make a satisfying *crunch* Really, is that truly so bad?  
  
Now, as I watch the human fools lie out in the moonlight, I notice a strange, unfamiliar feeling in the pit of my stomach. Possibly, it could be from hunger-I haven't eaten in several hours, and the fight against the Nidoqueen used up much of my strength. Although it would be a strange hunger. Usually hunger urges me to take action and seek out prey. This strange feeling only wants to curl up and ignore the world. Hunger sharpens my senses, but this odd, odd feelings dulls them and blears them. No, this can't be hunger, this emotion. This emotion is different than hunger in that it is an absence of desires, an absence of thought, an absence of energy. Something I have never felt before-but I believe it is an emotion felt by much of the rest of the world-another human thing. They have a word for it...  
  
But it can't be. I'm just hungry, it makes logical sense. I am the Legendary Red Gyarados. I am the largest, smartest, fiercest pokemon in the world, if not the universe. And to all the inhabitants of this lake, I might as well be GOD! I am supreme!  
  
And yet, this emotion is still gnawing in me, in a legend.  
  
The humans have a word for it...  
  
But I am the Great Legendary Gyarados.  
  
It cannot be despair.  
  
***  
Whew! There you have it! Angst, drama, and Gary-bashing!! Ahh, it's everything you want in a fanfic. Well, I think I'd just make this clear, that I have no idea if Gyarados have echolocation or whatnot, but it sounds logical to me. So, none of this is verified in any way by the nintendo peeps, just so you know. Like? Hate? Speak now, or forever hold your peace!! Review! The GirlieGyarados has left the building, and remember: Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines. 


End file.
